Big Picture Science for July 24, 2017 - What Goes Around

Big Picture Science - What Goes Around

It’s not just tin cans and newspapers.  One man says that, from a technical standpoint, everything can be recycled – cigarette butts, yoga mats, dirty diapers.  Even radioactive waste.  You name it, we can recycle it.  But we choose not to.  Find out why we don’t, and how we could do more.

Plus, a solar-powered device that pulls water from the air – even desert air.

And, something upon which life depends that seems dirt cheap, but can’t be replenished: soil.  What happens when we pave over this living resource?

Guests:

• Tom Szaky - CEO and founder of Terracycle.
• Eugene Kapustin - Graduate student, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley.
• Etienne Schneider - Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Minister, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
• Pete Worden - Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and former Director, NASA Ames Research Center.
• Paul Bogard - Assistant professor of English, James Madison University, author of, “The Ground Beneath Us: From the Oldest Cities to the Last Wilderness, What Dirt Tells Us About Who We Are.”  His op-ed about lawns, “Beyond Blades of Grass,” appeared in the June 16, 2017 New York Times.

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/what-goes-around

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.